The Search For Hades

Chapter 2-Crimson Dreams

I can’t remember all of it. I remember blood-so much blood. I was on my back in the alley. I could hear the chirping of birds or frogs? It couldn’t have been frogs. Not in the city but that’s what I heard. The brusque croak of a frog. Who knows. It was probably in my head. My aforementioned head was a jumble of images in those first few hours. I think I dozed off for awhile. That part I know happened. I dreamed of Olympus or at least my place in it. I dreamed of Hermes. His golden hair was cut short and he was waving that caduceus as if to strike. He had been frowning and then I saw the souls behind him. He was still guiding them. Even now in a descended state he was perfect in form-doing what he does. I think he said something to me but what it was I have no idea.   

I passed out and woke up at least three times and every time my eyes snapped open with icy panic I wondered if I’d actually died. That’s a peculiar sensation. You know? Not being sure whether you’re alive or dead. I half expected some horrifying visage of modern death to scoop me up in its arms like dead flowers. As if I was some brittle fauna shaded under the black sky with an interstitial sense of doom.     
I remember my white dress shirt covered in blood and the smell of the alley pungent in my nostrils. At some point I screamed. I can remember that too. I leaned back against the alley wall and screamed and screamed for what seemed like hours. Nobody came. Not at first. I was avoided and ignored. When I gave up- my voice crackling like lit tinder in my throat, I sat against the cold wall and stared at the alley mouth with my shredded shirt and soiled khakis and tried not to bleed out. 
Where had they gone? Would the girl come back and finish what she started? During those terrified late-night hours, I memorized every crag and line of the alley wall. I stared at the wet street in the night air and felt twisted with blind violence. I coughed and spat and banged my skull on the alley to stay conscious. I listened to sleet slap against the brick-faced buildings. I cried out and cursed until finally a movie theater door banged open and a stream of people came to the alley mouth. A group walked with hushed whispers and splattering footsteps down the alley, eyes darting back and forth as if to ward off any unseen horror that might lay in wait. 
Because I was cut to ribbons and close to passing out (my dress shirt was now a sticky color of refined oil), I barely noticed when the group came upon me. A face hovered close to my own. I don’t know what she saw or thought at the time. Maybe she thought I was already dead or soon to be. All I can say is that when she crouched next to me everything I saw was a blur like opening your eyes underwater. I could hear the shouting and gasps. I knew that something was happening. Somewhere in the back of my mind I expected an ambulance but everything was muddied and I was numb in shock. I didn’t even feel cold. She squeezed my hand and I tried to squeeze back but my muscles wouldn’t respond. I was like a statue-something carved in the alley for decorative purposes or maybe an art installation. How ironic would it have been to end there in that alley. The great Plouton, the ill-famed giver of wealth; he who receives many, dying in a cold alley in New Los Angeles. Thinking back now it seems funny but it wasn’t at the time.
I passed out before they got me in the van. I heard a voice close to my ear saying something and I watched detached like a passersby as my body was scooped up into the air and carried to the alley mouth. I heard the clanging rattle of the sliding door then all went gray and then black. Again I dreamed but it was fevered and nonsensical. I saw disparate images of a cave and a dim blue fire. I saw Persephone walking down a trailed path into a gilded forest. She was alone and her back was to me. She had grown her dark hair long down to the waist. She wore a dress that clung to her hips and stretched nearly to the ground. I could almost smell her perfumes. At the sight of her I was paralyzed with joy; even with her back to me I knew it was her. I called out. I shouted and finally I shrieked but she didn’t hear me or if she did refused to look back. Maybe she was commanded not to. Was that right? Could that be true? I jerked my head side to side but their was rumbling underneath. The earth opened up and an invisible hand spread lifeless fingers into the air and brought sickness.
I came to in the van kicking and screaming like a newborn. I saw street-lamps shooting past one after another almost in line with my own heartbeat. There was shouting and cursing. The woman from the alley was pressing rags against my chest and somebody else had my legs lifted in the air. I tried to breathe but it was ragged and hurt. I looked up into her face and I saw some combination of rage and blind will. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her mouth scrunched into a line. Her clothes were soaked red and sticking to her. I felt the van veer right and everything was thrown against the side. There was a sudden stop. There was more shouting then the van door was thrown open and banged to the side. I was grabbed by my arms and legs and pulled out. Then, again, everything went silent and with exasperation, and affection-I mercifully lost consciousness.

 You’re probably wondering how I got in this situation. How I came that close to dying; and though it was mostly my mistake, I can’t take all the blame, as it was like providence or some kind of divine inspiration that led me into that alley. 
They say that coincidence is a chance occurrence of unrelated events. Some random variable that leads to an unforeseen outcome whereas synchronicity is a kind of coincidence that holds a meaningful connection that stretches beyond chance. I say those explanations aren’t false exactly, but incomplete. I say that chance has nothing to do with it really. At least not in this day and age. I say(and maybe I’m bias in this regard), that there is fated intention that moves past pure chance. Call it divine will or destiny but intention is what structures what we call coincidence. It was this divine intention that led me to the alley and also explains, by the way, my behavior that night. I remember, earlier in the evening, eating an early dinner at a Greek restaurant downtown. I can’t remember the name of the place but that’s really the least important detail in this story. I sat outside at a glass table, sipping a burgundy wine in between bites of red meat cooked for hours so that it melts like butter onto your tongue. I heard the screeching wail of tires at the intersection in front of me and looked up to find a bright pair of steely eyes speeding toward me and then the automobile struck a fire hydrant, shuddered with a gasp, and stopped just feet from where I sat. I stared at those bright eyes until they went dark. I remember waiters shouting in modern Greek. A few patrons that had been seated next to me whispered to themselves. A few shook their heads. I wouldn’t have thought anything of the event had it not led me to the alley not twenty minutes later, but after the alley I had plenty of time to think it about it and know what it meant. You see, that wasn’t coincidence but neither was it purely synchonicity. The eyes that rushed toward me-bright as they were, were those of the chimera. I even thought I saw the serpent’s tail trailing behind to slap out at the street. There was a divine intention in that event-something meant just for me. 
I knew it for what it was. How could I not? If the night had gone as planned, it would have been just another near miss in a city full of barely contained tragedies. I would have taken a cab back to the motel and went to sleep. But clearly the iron drenched air of that night is in many ways still present in my nostrils. There had been rain that night and a warm wind whipping down from the inland valleys. These winds were called ‘devil winds’, and were responsible for a flurry of fires every year due to their strong gusts. I left the restaurant taking care to avoid the chimera that still lay smoking and hissing at the fire hydrant. I jogged to the intersection and crossed the street and bowed my head to the desert swollen winds.  Cars sped past, their tires sloshing in the rain-soaked street, and above our heads neon signs with their colorful plumages were beacons of divine intention. 
“Do you want your picture done,” A street artist said at the curb, turning his easel to show a black and white caricature of my own face done in charcoal. He was a large man on a small stool. He had brown skin and smooth, wide cheeks, and save for his damp clothing, seemed perfectly comfortable with the wind and rain. Though the picture had obviously been done when I sat outside the restaurant, the rain had caused the charcoal to dissolve and my face was smeared freakish in liquid ink. Above my right eye was a bleed that ran all the way down the paper. My mouth and chin were dreamlike as if only partially rendered. But the most unsettling thing was my neck and shoulders were erased completely so that my head appeared to suspend wholly in empty space. 
“I’ll give it to you for five dollars,” He said with a good-natured smile. He took the portrait off the easel and shook water off causing more ink to splatter across the page. Now my suspended head appeared to be in a star-filled sky. I was reminded of Nyx and searched my pockets for some cash or loose change at the very least. I pulled out a couple dollar bills and a handful of quarters and dimes and handed it over. 
“I’ll come back tomorrow and get a proper portrait done,” I said. 
He looked exhausted and his hands slipped on the fresh parchment when he fitted it onto the easel. My portrait was tossed onto a stack by his side. For some reason, I couldn’t take tear my gaze from it. Even though the rain had started to let up, ink still oozed down the page. My face now was barely recognizable. I crossed the street and ducked under a hotel awning and blew into my hands. The air was damp but still remarkably warm. I caught sight of a cab a half-block ahead and headed that way with my hands in the air waving. Then I stopped. At the adjoining block and across the street from a movie theater was what looked like a giant cavernous mouth. There were no streetlights on either side so if you looked at it just right you got the impression of a gaping maw; something you’d see in the jungles of the rain-forest. I don’t know how long I stood there. I do know the cab left and there was a few more but like my portrait of dissolving charcoal, I couldn’t pull my eyes away. This was divine intention. I was supposed to be standing at this curb at this moment. I crossed and stood at the alley mouth and looked inside but I didn’t see anything at first. There was just the hard tinging of rain on metal. I caught sight of a steam vent about halfway in and then I saw two shadows moving lazily down the alleyway. 
                        

I like to think of myself as a rational person. I’m not too impulsive although I have done things without thinking all the way through of the consequences. It’s worked for me. Oh, you probably know the story. Yes, I did abduct Persephone. No, I didn’t feel bad about it. Yes, she became my wife. Being impulsive proved to be a boon in that circumstance. Before we go any farther, I don’t want to cloud your judgment trying to justify what I’ve done. But neither do I want to be painted as the villain. When I went blind and deaf into that alleyway it was more about curiosity than anything else. I wasn’t going to hurt the girl. Even when I saw they were alone-just the two of them. I wouldn’t have hurt her. I know that sounds like the ravings of somebody who would have but, as I said, I’m not a villain. 
In the alley, I tried to breath normally but there was a smell. You know what I mean. Poverty comes with a stench. It smelled like somebody dropped off a year’s worth of garbage and let it sit in the hot sun, and then tried to cover it up with warm rain. The buildings’ walls were lacquered slick, rats scurried just past my shoes, and with every step I took, dirty water soaked my socks and my feet grew sodden. So, I was on guard. If was just those two and me. They were alone but so was I. I wouldn’t have hurt her.
When I got a little closer to the pair I could smell their perfumes. I don’t know why I remember this but there were two distinct smells both of them floral. The taller one walked a step ahead of the shorter one. I could tell they were young-not children, but neither of them had reached their twenty fifth year. They were small in stature not at all imposing. In fact, they were dainty and likely weak. The short one ran a hand through her hair and took that opportunity to glance back. It was sly as a fox and she caught sight of me. I try to imagine what she’d seen in that second. My body was framed in the lights of the city. I still hadn’t plunged deep into the alley at that moment. She probably saw a black silhouette or maybe thought it was a signature shadow. Where I’m from shadows were seen as representations of the soul and underworld. The shade a weak copy of the living physical self. That’s why I called them shades. 
I stood at attention when she looked back. There was a few seconds when I almost couldn’t move. I felt the rats cross over my shoes; the constant dripping and wheezing of air vents blew like train whistles; the wind kicked in a huff then went still. As I resumed pace I wanted to get closer and see them. It’s hard to explain why: call it curiosity. Or maybe in my bones-somewhere deep in my soul I knew what I would find. I tried to think of fate and what that meant and this day and age. There was some answer there in those two young women. They were supple and I was pulled. 
I increased my pace. Now I knew it was unmistakable. Just from the splashes from my footsteps. Now the taller one looked back and I saw her body grow stiff. I don’t know why but I threw myself against the alley wall and lurched close to the street. My breathing had grown shallow. I felt the waves of a chill impact my whole body. It started at my feet and slithered up my body and into my head. I felt the stirrings of sudden catastrophe. Do you know that feeling? The kind of instant misgivings that borders on panic. I like to imagine that I’m beyond the spiraling of terror. I remember times long past-memories that became myth and were passed down. I am the steward of a place that housed the dead. I built the sunless dungeon with its iron gates and pit of torment. I couldn’t be brought to terror yet there I was. My body was wet and cold. I shivered all over and echoes of catastrophe burned in my mind.  
Then the tall one stepped just right into the light of the moon and I saw her hair. Even in the sharp turn, just that split second of illumination, I saw the color red. My stomach lurched inside of me. I stumbled up but remained hugged against the alley wall. The red hair was her calling card. A shard of the past that she wore with a posture of authority. The witch-goddess. Hecate. I knew that was the reason for the uncertainty I’d felt-the terror. The witch goddess was at the crossroads. But who was with her? I stayed shrouded not yet willing to approach. 
“Do you hear that?” Hecate asked. Her voice was pitched high in the alley. I stopped moving and just listened. The other one said something but it was short and direct. I couldn’t make out the words. I continued forward and was close now. They were unaware I had gotten to them. From my place in the shades I studied Hecate’s face. She had a woeful, troubled expression. Her cheeks were sunken and her lips pressed tightly. Her eyes were fixed in front of her and glassy. I bent to the waist and pulled from my pocket a kerchief I’d used to wipe rain from my face. I would cover the mouth of the shorter one to keep her from screaming until Hecate recognized me. I couldn’t have them panicking and running off like wild deer. Hecate! Here! My bowels twisted in my gut as I came very close now. Still they didn’t turn. I had the favor of Tyche on this night! Chance was at my side and I came behind the short one and covered her mouth with the kerchief and yanked her into the dark. 
I heard her muffled scream when I pulled her to the side and away from Hecate. She looked startled, as if she couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Her body went rigid like she was rooted to the spot. The shorter one kicked, her head thrashing against my chest. I tried to quell her fear and made to shout at Hecate but she bucked and the back of her throat slammed against my throat. I coughed and went to a knee and she twisted like a serpent in my arms. I almost lost her and had to grab her by the waist. Again, I tried to get to Hecate but the short one was quick. Her fingers dug into my cheek and grazed down drawing blood. I swung her away but my hands were wet and I lost hold. I heard the bottle break. It was a sharp, splashing crack that echoed through the alley. Without a word I tried to back away. The shorter one looked at it, then at me. She lashed out. I felt the glass puncture my chest but there was no pain at first. Just a deflating kind of pinch. The air was knocked from my lungs and I fell. She crawled astride me and plunged the bottle again into my midsection. One. Two. Three. It happened as fast as a snake strike. I tried to speak but my throat was chafed and my tongue felt swollen in my mouth. My eyes blurred and I tasted blood on the roof of my mouth. It was about that time that I started to fade in and out. I started to spin and could only lay my head flat against the pavement. 
I know Hecate recognized me. I said her name more than once. “Hecate, help me. The cave cannot be left unattended.” She didn’t respond. Her large, pale face stared down at me. “Hecate! Get help.” Still in a trance, her expression was wary, not quite there. She backed away until her back was at the opposite wall. I tried to sit up but I was so weak and tired. Though I had thought of Hecate since descending, and wondered whether she’d made herself to the city, I hadn’t purposefully sought her out. To find her in this alley on this night was something like providence but not the good kind.
I never found out who the shorter woman was. To this day, I have no idea. I have to assume she was descended. That, of course, makes the most sense given she was with Hecate. But who she was-I haven’t the slightest idea. 
They ran off at about that time. I think I dozed off for a few minutes because when I came to the alley was empty. Thinking back now, in unguarded moments, it occurs to me that perhaps I made a terrible mistake. Sure, I was reckless-I’d admit that. I shouldn’t have grabbed the shorter one and covering her mouth with a kerchief was stupid. Hindsight is twenty-twenty after all. It’s easy now, after the fact, to chastise my actions but no one ever expects to have a broken bottle turn your body into bloody ribbons. It was the last thing I expected. And to see Hecate. It was almost impossible to imagine her living a descended life in the city. Persephone and I-even Hermes and I-had talked of the eccentricities of the witch-goddess but these were parts of herself that she couldn’t see. Her tendency to erupt in anger was something she didn’t recognize let alone reconcile. Her spurious demeanor had always been a mask-a fake smile or insincere laugh. I had no idea what she would do for money. I couldn’t see her selling her body for pleasure. Nor could I see her taking up any kind of real trade. She was closed-in, a bird too stubborn and prideful to be caged.
So I lay there in in a stinking puddle of my own blood but-once unconsciousness came- it all came back vividly in my dreams. I saw again the shorter one with her gleaming, haughty eyes. I don’t feel the cuts when she lashes out but, feel her hot breath on my neck instead. I hear the low growl almost like a rumbling in her throat. On the other side of the alley, I see Hecate’s terror-stricken face under the light of the moon. I see her hands clasped in front of her as if to pray and I hear the joyless crack in her tone when she says they have to leave. Yes, I lay there and I know that death is near. I stare at the alley mouth and wait for Charon. I wonder what I would say to the ferryman. Would he recognize me? Would he know what to do about the cave. Once or twice, I thought I saw his long, gray beard, and grim bearing. I imagined him speaking at me reproachfully, scorning in his criticism. “How could you end up like this? How prideful you are! Did you not think before you acted? Your brother will be mad with rage! Fool! Senseless!” Then I jolt awake and my body is on fire and I’m shivering with sweat. All around me is mindless noise-a jumble of cymbals and drums and bony-pale I will myself to keep breathing. I focus on the exhale mostly wondering if my soul (if we have such a thing) is being loosened onto the world. I cover the wounds on my chest and stomach with my hands but I can’t put any real pressure there. I try to speak but my voice too is barely a whisper. I shiver and I soak. I wait for Charon. I have nightmares and my head is swollen and my body is battered. I repeat the same night again and again.        

Hank finds Lamia

 The house would have appeared abandoned if not for the meticulously maintained lawn and rose bushes. A mass of shabby roof tiles and flaked paint were surrounded by thick bunches of roses lining the driveway and perimeter of the lawn. Hank stood at the door, suddenly unsure of himself. He hadn’t seen or spoken to Deanna Montgomery since her daughter had been revealed to be Lamia. ‘A child killer. An eater of children. A horrible fucking monster.’ He rapped twice, staring at his shoes. When the door groaned open and a sty of unkempt,  graying blond hair and distrusting blue eyes peeked out, he did the most natural thing he could think of. Hank held out a cigarette. 

“Gotta minute?”

Deanna smiled but it didn't reach her eyes. She opened the screen door and stepped out. She had lost weight since he’d seen her almost two months prior. It appeared she’d let makeup and maybe even showering lapse as well. 

“Not a good time,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I. I’m sorry for not coming by sooner if it makes a difference.”

“There was nothing to say.”

“Yes there was.”

“What? Sorry but your daughter is never coming home and by the way, she’s a killer of little babies!”

Hank recoiled. The remark had meant to be sarcastic but punched with horrible sadness. He felt a tightness in his jaw. Deanna bent to a small love seat and plucked a lighter off the cushion. She lit her cigarette then held out the flame so Hank could light his own. Their eyes met as he puffed the cherry to life. 

“Has she come home?”

“I just said no.”

“Are you lying?”

“Why would she come home? She knows the police are looking for her. She knows what she did.”

“She has to sleep somewhere. Stephanie hasn’t reached out at all?”

Deanna’s eyes glazed for a beat. As if something occurred to her that she’d rather not remember.

“Maybe you should check the sewers. Wasn’t that where you found her anyway?”

Hank took a long drag of the cigarette. He turned his head and dry hacked into the back of his hand. “Where did she go after that night?” He asked. 

“What night?”

“The night we brought her here!” He all but screamed. Deanna fumbled back involuntarily, her hands jerked in small tremors. 

“She talked with the police for a few minutes then told them she’d go get a check-up at the Emergency Care. She was tired and wet and filthy! The cops took her at her word! They thought she was the victim! How were we supposed to know?”

“Hecate knew.”

“That lying bitch. I’ll kill her if she comes around here again. Is that how you found out?”

“About Lamia?”

“Yes.” 

There was a loud pop inside the house like popcorn being cooked on the stove. Hank nodded, trying to be tactful. 

“Hecate gleaned the truth the same time we did. In fact, I’m betting she put it together in the sewer. I saw her face down there. She didn’t know Stephanie and Lamia were one and the same.”

“That’s horseshit! How could she have not known?”

“Don’t forget that it was you and she that came down to my office last year. Stephie was missing. You’re telling me Hecate knew then? She didn’t have a clue.”

“Then she figured it out along the way,” She scoffed. “They were in on it together. For god’s sake, Dolan, they planned her own disappearance!”

“You’re right,” Hank said softly. “But her vanishing wasn’t because of her crimes. They were hiding from somebody. I just don’t know who. It was Hecate that had her hidden away. That explains her shock.”

“Her shock. Then how do you know that whoever they’re hiding from isn’t the child killer?”

Hank paused. Deanna had spat out a real possibility. He needed time to process who Hecate would be terrified of. His mind flashed to Apollo. It had been months since he’d last been seen. He startled as a shuffling scrape somewhere in the kitchen or perhaps the dining room caused Deanna to glance back hesitantly. 

“Do you have company?”

A light inside, just past the hallway switched off. Hank got the sudden urge to urinate. A deep, unsettling pit settled in his bowels.

“Deanna?”

“No, it’s nothing. Probably the cat.”

She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her hands shook now with each drag. She followed as Hank stepped inside. 

“Wait just a goddamn minute, Hank.”

He glanced into the kitchen, his eyes surveying the washer and dryer in the corner and broken dining room table in the middle of the eating area. He walked up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he noticed all the blinds were shut. Behind him, Deanna gurgled out a string of obscenities. He stepped into the bathroom and turned on the light. There were stains in the toilet bowl and he caught the odor of urine. Behind him, in a bedroom across the hall, a low rustling was barely audible.

“Did you get a dog?”

“I told you I have a cat!” Deanna shot back dripping with sarcasm. 

Hank pushed past her and tried the door. It was locked. ‘She’s here’. 

Hank grabbed Deanna by the hair and pulled her back onto the porch. She thrashed cursing him in the most colorful of ways. He reached into his waist band for his weapon. The cold steel was a comfort but barely. 

“She’s inside the house, Deanna.”

Deanna whispered, clearly frightened. “She came just after.”

“Stay out here.”

“She doesn’t sleep.”

“What?”

“She’s been here thirty six days. She hasn’t slept in that time. I’ve been here, Hank. She doesn’t sleep. Ever.”

“Alright, go to the police station and ask for Ackermann. I’ll come when I have her.”

“And the stench. The odor is death.” Her eyes were faraway now, a mixture of awful dread and hopelessness. 

He turned back to the screen door and shut it in her face. He glanced back down the hallway. It was probably ten feet from the hall to the staircase. He knew Lamia was on the second floor or attic if Deanna had one. He took one step, then another, the weight in his legs like iron. He walked through the living room and kitchen then back up the stairs. He tried the bedroom door. And it was unlocked. For a long second, he was uncomprehending. He stood dumbly as the door creaked open a few inches. No light came from the other side. Behind him, he heard Deanna shrieking something. 

“Lamia!” He shouted. 

He craned his neck to listen. Nothing. Only goddamn Deanna and her bellowing. He pushed the door open and groped for a light switch. When he flicked it and heard the bulb pop, the pit in his stomach reached all the way to the floor. He turned back to Deanna and a blur rushed forward from the back of the hall. Hank hadn’t time to so much as scream before Stephanie threw her weight into him. He was weightless for a frightful few seconds. When his back struck the stairs he bounced like a rag doll upside down. Hank was sure the next sickening crack would be his neck. A piercing pain lanced up his hip and shoulder blade. He came down hard on his elbow, his head banging the bottom step. His vision was filled with tiny white spots. He heard Deanna gasp and the knock knocking of feet bounding down the stairs. The screen door slammed open. Hank lifted his head. He got to his knees, fighting back nausea and jabbing pain in his back and hips. He crawled outside and looked up the driveway to see Stephanie pointing his glock at him. Her eyes were sunken and steely. She had cut her hair short, almost boyish since the sewers.

“Lamia!” 

Deanna stumbled outside and opened her arms wide. “Stephanie, honey! Come back inside.”

Hank got to his feet. “That’s not her goddamn name,” he spat. 

Lamia spared him a glance. Then she pulled the trigger. Hank flinched but there was no bang. No parts of him being blown off in bits and blood. ‘She doesn’t know about the safety!’ He sprinted forward, praying that Lamia didn’t disengage the safety latch before he could reach her. When he got within ten paces, Lamia dropped the weapon and raced up the sidewalk. Hank stumbled to his sedan. He threw the keys into the ignition and jolted forward. It was too late. Lamia had cut across the street, ram to the back of a neighbor’s house and jumped a fence. Hank sped through an intersection, narrowly missing another small car, made a sharp right then slowed on the next block. He spied each yard looking for her in the bushes and shadows. Then his car door flew open. ‘Oh shit.’ Lamia’s wrist flicked out three times, a short blade cutting his left fist, ribs, and shoulder. Hank lashed out, backhanding her on the side of the head. The sedan lurched to a stop. 

“They’re mine!” She hissed. 

Hank rolled out of the car and struck the pavement. The pain in his back had stretched to his neck and he noticed warm wetness on his side. The blood wasn’t gushing. ‘They’re superficial,’ he thought. ‘It was probably a pocket knife or kitchen utensil.’ He vomited onto the curb and was further sickened to see Lamia hovering above him, still within striking range.

“Why eat them?” He shouted. “Why on earth would you eat them?”

She smiled a grimace. “For Hera.”

“Hera?”

The smile dropped away. “Hera.”

“You’re an insufferable, evil bitch,” he croaked. 

Lamia squinted at him, as if trying to focus her eyes. She licked her lips. It caused Han’s stomach to hurt. He felt gorged, or the onset of food poisoning. He stared at the road, the concrete was hot. It shimmered under the sun. He thought he might vomit again. He looked back at Lamia. Her eyes were dead as they stared back at him. And he saw triumph. There was a wailing up the street and Hank squinted to see Deanna lumbering towards them. Lamia sneered, a low, inaudible mumble escaping her. She looked back at Hank for a split second then sprinted down the sidewalk. Hank put his head down and groaned loudly. 

Lamia

 The house would have appeared abandoned if not for the meticulously maintained lawn and rose bushes. It looked polluted and sunken into the ground. A mess of shabby roof tiles and flaked paint was lined with soggy rain gutters. Hank stared at the door, suddenly unsure of himself. He hadn't spoken to Deanna Montgomery since it had been revealed that her daughter was the Descended Lamia. A child killer. And worse. A horrible fucking monster. He rapped twice, staring at his shoes. When the door groaned open and distrusting gray eyes peered out, he did the most natural thing he could think of. Hank held out a cigarette.

"Gotta minute?"

Deanna smiled through a grimace. She opened the screen door and stepped out. Hank took a tentative look at her. She had lost weight since he'd seen her last. Her dark, sunken eyes sat back in her skull. Hank caught a smell, not exactly body odor but something that caused him to glance inside. She followed his gaze, squinting. 

"Not a good time," she said. "I don't know what to say."

"Nor do I. I'm sorry for not coming by sooner if it makes any difference."

"There was nothing to say."

"Yes, there was."

"What? Sorry but not only is your daughter never coming home but she's a killer of little babies?"

Hank recoiled. The remark had meant to be sarcastic but was punched with horrible sadness. He felt a tightness in his jaw. Deanna bent to a small love seat and plucked a lighter off the cushion. She lit her cigarette then held out the match so Hank could light his own. Their eyes met as he puffed the cherry to life

"Has she come home?"

"No."

"Are you lying?"

"Why would she come home? She knows the police are looking for her. She knows what she did."

"She has to sleep somewhere. Stephanie hasn't reached out at all?"

"Maybe you should check the sewers. Wasn't that where you found her anyway?"

"Where did she go after that night?"

"What night?"

"The night we brought her home!" He all but screamed. 

Deanna fumbled a drag from her cigarette. Her hands were greasy and trembled. 

"She talked with the police for a few minutes then said she'd go get a check-up at the hospital the following morning! She was tired and wet and filthy! They took her at her word. After all, she wasn't accused of anything! She was a missing teenager! How were we supposed to know?"

"Hecate knew."

"That lying bitch. It's all her fault. Is that how you found out?"

"About Lamia?"

"Yes."

Hank nodded. There was a loud pop inside like popcorn being cooked on a stove. Hank glanced around Deanna's shoulder.

"I'm cooking," she mumbled.

"Hecate gleaned the truth of Stephanie the same time we did. In fact, I'm betting she put it together before. I saw her face down there. She was terrified of Stephanie."

"That's horseshit! How could she have not known?"

"I don't think she had a clue as to what Stephanie was doing with the children."

"They were in on it together, Hank! They planned her disappearance!"

"You're right. The abduction was fabricated. I still don't know why and Hecate hasn't said. I think they were hiding from somebody. But the other stuff, no, she was appalled in the sewers. She was genuinely scared."

"Are you saying the Descendant bitch feels betrayed? I'm her mother! How do you think it sits with me?" 

A shuffling sound behind her caused her to move in front of the screen door. Hank frowned. 

"Do you have company?" 

A light inside, just past the hallway flickered twice. Hank got the sudden urge to urinate. A deep, unsettling pit settled in his bowels. 

"Deanna?" 

"No, it's nothing. Probably the cat."

She wouldn't meet his eyes. Her hands shook now with each drag. Hank stepped around her and opened the screen door. When he got inside, the stench was more pronounced. It was like rotten meat. Hank took the steps two at a time until he reached the second floor. The wood creaked under his weight. He noticed the windows had all the blinds shut. Trace amounts of light peeked out from underneath. Another creak came from his left and he squinted towards the bathroom. The light was off. the door partially closed. He stepped in and checked behind the shower curtain. Nothing. There was a rustling from a bedroom in front of him and he swore there was a low, guttural growl from inside.

"Did you get a dog?"

Deanna didn't answer. He looked down the stairs and she stood transfixed, staring at him with mouth ajar. She looked like she was in the middle of shrieking yet no sound came from her. 

Oh my god, she's here.

Hank swung the laundry room door wide while reaching into his waistband for his weapon. The cold steel was a comfort but barely. He turned towards a second bedroom at his right, peering in and checking underneath the bed. Deanna was cursing and shouted something but Hank barely heard her.

"Lamia!" 

A loud bang caused him to lunge forward. Then an eerie silence save for the dripping of a bathroom faucet caused the hair on his arms to stand up. He turned his head for only a second just as a blur rushed forward from the back of the hall. Hank hadn't time to so much as scream before Lamia threw her body into him. He was weightless for a frightful few seconds. When his back struck the stairs and he bounced like a ragdoll upside down, he thought he would die. Hank was sure the next sickening crack would be his neck. A piercing pain lanced up his hip and shoulderblade. He came down hard on his elbow, his head banging the bottom step. His vision blurred but he heard Deanna gasp and the knock knocking of  Lamia's feet as she bounded down the stairs. The screen door slammed open. 

Hank lifted his head, got to his knees. There was jabbing pain in his back and hips. Deanna screamed something else as he stumbled up and all but fell outside. He looked up the driveway to see Lamia pointing his Glock at him. Her eyes were glassy and faraway. She had cut her hair short almost boyish. Her face looked the same except thinner. 

"Stephie!" Deanna screamed.

Lamia spared her a glance. Then she pulled the trigger. Hank flinched but there was no bang. There were no parts of him being blown off into bits and blood. He got to his feet. It's the safety! She doesn't know about the safety! He bounded up the drive, praying that Lamia didn't disengage the safety latch before he could reach her. When he got within ten paces, Lamia dropped the weapon and raced up the sidewalk. Hank stumbled to his sedan, threw the keys into the ignition, and jolted forward. It was too late. Lamia had cut across the street, ran to the back of a neighbor's house, and jumped the fence. Hank sped to the intersection, made a sharp right then slowed on the next block. There was no sign of her. He rolled the car to a stop and leaned forward against the steering wheel. The throbbing in his lower back was relentless and he grimaced as he pulled the emergency brake and got out. As he dialed the police, he bent and vomited into the gutter.

Introducing Arcadia's End

 

Hank entered the dusty bedroom to find a scene of chaos. Straight ahead of him, a woman lay choking, her laborious breathing raspy. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, heard the crackling of each gasp. The air around her quickened, warning of the suffocation that was imminent.

What in the fresh hell is this, He thought. 

"How long has she been sick?"

It was obvious the woman was seriously ill. A cancer patient or maybe tuberculosis. 

"Watch her very closely," Rodrigo said next to him. He had approached Hank at his office two days ago, begging for help from the private investigator 'who used to be a cop'. Of Hispanic descent, the young man was barely out of his teens yet hard labor had already lined his face and calloused his hands. Or maybe it was the stress. Hank knew about the stress. The past year had been nothing but one trouble after another. 

"Watch," Rodrigo whispered.

"Why?"

"It's being cut as we speak!" Rodrigo nearly screamed.

Hank studied her more closely. The dark bags under her sunken sockets gave the impression of being beaten. An observation that wasn't without credibility, he knew. He had noticed the bruising on her arms as soon as he entered. Rodrigo looked away quickly, a wry expression on his face. Suddenly, a  stream of chunky vomit exploded out of the woman. She moaned, half slumped out of the bed. She said something in what sounded like Spanish but Hank knew wasn't. It was an ancient dialect. It was Mayan. 

"You said a crime was being commited. Best I can tell, you're kicking her ass. Maybe I should run you in."

"It's not me!" Rodrigo cried. "The crime is happening right now, as we speak! Can't you see?" 

Hank turned on him. "What the hell are you talking about?" 

"Her hour is being cut," Rodrigo said slowly, as if to a child. "Once your hour is cut, there is nothing that can be done. I've seen it before. They just die."

"What does that mean?"

"She will be dead in a few weeks."

Hank shook his head. He felt a physical chill pass through him. He knew what Rodrigo was getting at. Descendant. A fallen deity was causing this woman to whither away.

"How do they do it?" He asked.

"I don't know and I don't want to know! I stay away from the Brujo."

"The Brujo."

"Yes."

"Can't you call a doctor?"

"For what? There is nothing a doctor can do. I stay away.  I don't want my hour cut too!"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Hank asked, seething. "What did you hire me for?"

"Find him and stop him before it's too late! You know Descended, at least that's the rumor. You can help her! You must!"

Hank swept his gaze around the room, noting the static electricity in the air, the hair on his arms stood on end. He walked to the edge of the bed and put a hand on her forehead. She was burning up. 

"What's her name?"

"Olivetta."

He bent to her ear. "Olivetta, did a Descendant do this to you?"

Perspiration rolled off of her face as she nodded once and closed her eyes. She mumbled something under her breath. A chant or prayer, Hank couldn't tell. He felt dizzy as if her illness was catching. It had been this curious fact that had finally caused him to acquiesce and take Rodrigo's case. 

"Olivetta, which Descendant? What deity did this to you?"

"The Brujo," She whispered. "Ch'ul tot! Ch'ul ch'en! Ch'ul vita chopol tamjmec ali jcruntatique!"

Rodrigo screamed and covered his ears. His mouth uttering the words as they poured out of her. Hank looked from one to the other, incredulity in his features. He walked to the other side of the bed. As he did, her eyes never left him. He creaked open a window and threw back cream-colored shades.

"What did she say?" 

Rodrigo's distress spilled out in a loud, coughing sob. He whirled onto Hank and pulled him back by the shoulder. "It's not just a Brujo," He screamed. " He is here! It's J'ac'chamel!"

"Who?"

"J'ac'chamel is cutting her hour!"

"Who is that?"

"He is the giver of the process of death," Rodrigo said with sad finality. 

"And?"

"Nothing can be done. She will be gone soon."

"I'll check it out, Rodrigo. But you have to be straight with me. Is J'ac'chamel Descended?"

Rodrigo's manic eyes were glassy. He raised both hands as if to ward off an invisible attacker. He wiped his nose on his left sleeve then stared down at Olivetta who had succumbed to sleep.  

"J'ac'chamel has Descended. He lives and the Maya are without hope. The giver has come."

"Is it like magic?" Hank asked his mind suddenly on Hecate.

Rodrigo choked back a sob and wept into his hands. Hank turned and stared outside the tiny shack. His face betrayed none of the fear that he suddenly felt. 

Arrival Of The Exiled Chapter 1!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was under a dark, rain filled sky that officer Gregg Ackerman came across the child, mutilated almost beyond recognition. The playground stood vacant. The sand caked and monkey bars slippery. Water made the jungle gym glisten. Some of the play set had fallen into disrepair but neighborhood children still came. This was where the little boy had likely been taken.
Gregg walked through the crime scene, kerchief in hand. The New Los Angeles police department had the entire block barricaded but that didn’t stop nosy neighbors and reporters. Nothing ever did. He waved them back, was met with a half dozen phones pointed in his direction.
“Anything to get the shot.” Ackerman spat. He glanced over at the beams and slide, the swing set that sat inert, too still as if frozen in place. He found himself shuddering.
“It’s not the cold is it?” officer Ross Martson asked beside him.
“A different kind of cold maybe.” Ackerman said with a humorless smile. “My insides are chilled.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you talk to the press?” Ross asked. “They’re starting to gather.”
“This place is a crime scene.” Ackerman growled. “That little boy just had his insides ripped out. I could care less about the goddamn news networks.”
“I’ll talk to them.” Ross said, a tone of frustration in his voice.
Ackerman turned back to the body, began taking pictures. He felt macabre, like the body wasn’t actually real but a wax dummy. Something you’d find in an art house museum. The child’s head had been turned all the way around. So although he lay on his stomach, the boy’s terror filled eyes stared up at the clouds. His mouth was open but a bloody mess where his tongue had been taken. Ackerman bent down and inspected the face.
“Has the kid’s tongue been found or did he take it with him?”
Ross looked at the playground. “Nothing but the rain and sand might have it covered. Parts of him are everywhere.”
Ackerman sighed, ducked under the crawl tube. He shimmied forward until he was under the big toy and let his eyes adjust to the shadows. He heard the rain bash onto the tube and it reminded him of a bass drum. His attention came at last to a smeared word written on the side of the equipment in sharp, angular script. Lamia.
“Anything?” Ross asked.
“Yeah.” Ackerman shambled up and to his feet.
Silence held them as crime scene investigators entered the perimeter. Each of them took a look at the body but didn’t let their eyes linger too long. It seemed sacrilegious, Ackerman knew.
Ackerman staggered back to his patrol car, felt the impact of the boy still on him. He fumbled with a cigarette while retrieving his phone from the glove box. He dialed quickly. 
“Yeah.” A familiar voice said after the first ring.
“Hank. Gotta minute?” Ackerman asked.
A slight pause. “What’s up?”
“You ever heard of Lamia?”
“Is it a food?”
“An autograph on the side of a playground crawl tube.”
“Is there a body?” Hank asked.
“Yeah.”
“How bad?”
“Pretty sick. Kid missing body parts, gutted bad.”
“Don’t say anything to the press, I’m on my way.”
Thirty minutes later, Hank Dolan dipped his head under police tape and was immediately blocked before he could get a look at the crime scene.
“You can’t be here, Dolan.” Ross said. “You’re not a cop anymore remember?”
“Talk to Ackermann. He called me.” Hank growled.
“Fuck that. I’m talking to you. There’s still a lot of cops that remember what you did last year. You can’t turn your back then come back like nothing happened. You killed cops asshole. Get the fuck out of here.”
“What’s the matter Ross? Were you on Pious’s payroll too?”
“Fuck you-”
Just then, Ackermann grabbed Hank by the arm and spun away from what was quickly spiraling into a physical confrontation.
“I hate that guy.” Hank said.
“Oh, he knows it.” Ackermann said with a grin.
Hank tried to push the memories of last year out of his mind but it was impossible. He couldn’t just forget how close he had come to getting himself killed while trying to protect Sadie Fuller. Then to find out Sadie herself was the most dangerous woman in the city had complicated things further. A splotch of red on the underside of the crawl tube brought him back around. He swallowed hard and looked at his feet. There were patches of wet clothing and was that hair? He stepped away from the tube and stared out at the playground. It took a few seconds before he realized what he was seeing. There were body parts strewn here and there. They were scattered as if the victim had literally been torn apart and his limbs just strewn wherever.
“It’s a wild animal attack.” He said.
“No, it’s not.” Ackermann responded. “Look.”
He led Hank back underneath the tube and together they stared at the word Lamia scrawled in blood.
“What the fuck is Lamia?” Ackermann asked.
“I would guess a name.” Hank took out his phone and punched up the Internet. “Goddammit.”
“What?”
“It is. This one is Descended.”
Ackermann looked out at the playground and shook his head. “Sure?”
“A hundred percent. It’s Greek, Descended with the others.”
“Same as last year?”
Hank’s mind flashed to Sadie Fuller. “No. This one is different. You guys are gonna have your hands full.”
“You’re gonna consult right?” Ackermann said sharply.
“I’m not a cop anymore. Ross is right about that much.” 
“You’ve had experience tracking these things. Hank, how the fuck do I go about catching a Descendant that eats goddamn children?”
“I’d start by checking missing persons reports and the morgues. Good luck, pal.”
“Are you serious?”
Hank held up his hands in a pacifying fashion. He backed up and ducked under the police tape.
“Don’t come back.” Ross smirked.
“Tell the Church of Man I said hello.” Hank responded without turning his head.
“Fuck you, Dolan.”
Hank jumped into his Sedan and looked back at the crime scene that was quickly being cordoned off. He felt a chill all the way up his spine. For the first time in the past year, he was relieved to be a private investigator. This case was sure to get ugly and he wanted no part of it. 


Lilac and Lemon. Sadie Fuller woke up at the Lotus. At least, that’s what it used to be called. Now it was a sea of yellow flowers swaying like feathers in the breeze. She could smell them. But these weren’t lilacs. They were some kind of daffodil or tulip. The grounds used to be maintained, back when the Maharishi-ten, Japanese Descendant goddess, still lived.
Sadie closed her eyes and let Kali come forth. She felt pressure as the Indian goddess stretched her arms. Kali bit her tongue. Hard. Sadie winced as blood gushed into her mouth. Kali looked out through Sadie’s eyes and breathed in the mountain air. “Does this look familiar to you?” She asked. Kali inspected the bear statue that marked the entrance to the Maharishi-ten’s compound. It was dull gray with fangs. Parts had started to chip off as though the demise of the goddess was now signaling the end of her images and symbols as well. Kali kicked at the pebbles on the ground. She is a stranger to me. Sadie nodded, pushed the goddess deep inside once again.
They had started to take walks. All around the estate, Sadie would walk with Kali, acquainting herself with the goddess that had caused her to kill thirty or more the previous year. It wasn’t my fault. Sadie thought. Somewhere she heard Kali snicker.
She dipped her hand under a tree branch and sat cross legged amongst the flowers. She was soft, careful not to crush the pedals. At the horizon, the morning sun bathed the estate in shadowy purple. She picked out a blossom, held it to her nose. The fragrance made her feel light-headed. Perhaps it was residual grace from the goddess that had planted it.
The sound of footsteps walking down the dirt driveway caused her to look up. And there stood Nephthys. Descended Egyptian Goddess, she had been looking after Sadie since her stay began. Sadie assumed she was there to make sure Kali didn’t kill anybody else. Although she had pangs of resentment, she understood. Kali had been an unstoppable force of nature.
Nephthys stopped just short of the blossoms and glanced around. Her dark eyes measured everything as if she were a falcon taking in what lay below.
“You coming up for breakfast?” She asked.
Sadie smiled. “Yeah, I’m starved.”
Nephthys came close, put a hand on Sadie’s head. She felt pressure as the goddess squeezed her scalp ever so lightly. Sadie sighed weakly.
“The caretaker comes today.” Nephthys said.
Sadie glanced up the driveway beyond the blossoms toward the three tiered pagoda that lay a mile up the road. Her back stiff, she took a deep breath and noticed her fingers clenched.
“You know how I feel about visitors.”
“This can’t be helped. It’s his generosity that is allowing us a respite from the city.”
“But Kali.”
“Kali will have to be controlled.” Nephthys sniffed. “The goddess can only exercise her will if you allow it.”
Sadie gritted her teeth. I will not be invisible. She felt her head swim, closed her eyes. “You know that’s not true.”
Nephthys looked into Sadie’s eyes. “She must be made to understand.”
Sadie swallowed. “Oh, I think she understands. She just doesn’t care. It’s compulsion.”
Nephthys nodded, running a hand through Sadie’s glossy black hair.
Out in the distance, a car was making its way up the driveway. A cloud of dust rose up in its wake.
Sadie leaned forward, squinted. “That’s him.”
A hush came over the estate as the pair walked toward the pagoda. Sadie looked directly ahead, her jaw tight. Again, Nephthys ran a hand through her hair, this time giving it a playful tug.
“Hey now.” Sadie said, trying to sound annoyed.
“Sorry Mama.” Nephthys teased. She glanced back at the freshly washed Lexus winding upward. The car skidded to a stop. Fudo San invisible through the window tint.
Nephthys smiled and waved. “Stay calm. Whatever you do, keep the Indian goddess at bay.”


She awoke in the dark. She looked down at her hands. They were milky. She stretched each finger. She reached up, felt her face. It was warm. Heated. Her fingertips felt the contours, the shape. She knew her name. Hecate. But she didn’t recognize her body. The body was a stranger, something fleeting, ghostly. She could still sense the bodiless. They were here too. But they were silent, quieted. She probed out. Yes. They were there but she felt them as if, like her body, they were not hers.
I am Hecate. She thought. Of the Titans. 
Hecate stood. She ran her hands through red woven silk, straightened her back, felt a popping in her spine. A wetness settled on her face. She felt it drip down, warm against her skin. She raised her hands slowly, collected the wetness on her finger. The wetness came from her nose as well. She sniffed. But the world was blurry now. Hecate wiped at her sockets.
She squinted at tawny leaves that had collected around her. She wondered how she’d found herself there. Had she been taken? Staring at the moon, she heard howling. First one or two then a whole chorus. She smiled. But there was a crashing sound as well. She tasted something on her tongue. The orange and brown tree leaves were just an assemblage of many. Perhaps ten to twelve large oaks had all deposited leaves in a disarray. Tree branch shadows spun outward like cold, misshapen fingers. Hecate looked past them and saw the dark churning. A rolling rhythm with beads of white crashed outward, downward. The ground underneath her feet suddenly felt flaccid. Hecate shivered. She watched the ocean waves blast onto the shore for five minutes. She felt them as if they were polishing the surface where they crashed. She looked at the glossy sand and walked out to it. She knelt. It’s cold! She looked right then left then spied a pier a short distance away. She felt a pull towards it. It was a tug somewhere in her psyche. The structure was speckled in lights. From where she stood, they were tiny orbs. They reminded her of stars, like the ones above her head. She wanted to reach out to them. But even more than that, she wanted to taste the ocean.
Hecate slipped out of her simple, sheer garment. She felt it fall down her back and onto the feet. She heard a whistle from somewhere close and observed a mortal man also at the water’s edge. He stared at her, his head slowly shaking.
Hecate’s attention went back to the water; It’s icy grip at her ankles, she waded in. A crash sent the taste of salt onto her tongue. She knew the current was strong, already she was shoved this way and that. She rocked as the waves came on. She jumped headfirst, felt the violent jolt as air was forced out of her lungs. The wave rolled onto her, she felt it like a cutting palpation on her back and legs. She gasped in neck high water, danced back to the water’s edge.
Again Hecate felt the pull and glanced at the lights to her left. She swung left and picking up her dress in stride, headed towards the pull. Hecate plunged down the beach at almost a gallop. She stopped to slip the dress back although she couldn’t really say why. Her nakedness didn’t matter. She found after a few minutes, her legs tired. They trembled and she had to sit. But still that pull called out to her.
What is it? She thought.
Hecate stared up at the full moon and began to mumble an incantation. Her wet hair in her face, she brushed it smoothly back with the back of her hand. Her body shook in the breeze. She spoke aloud but her voice trembled. Quickly she realized her words were having no effect. Nothing was manifesting. Her words might as well have been meaningless. Oh no. She tried again, then again. Nothing. Hecate hesitated, probed out to the bodiless. They were there but faint. They would come but were powerless? Was that true? She felt the power in her lingering. A potential as yet untapped but couldn’t call out to it fully. It was as if her magic was only a vestigial spark of what it had been. She wanted to cry out, rage at the churning black in front of her. She seethed through gritted teeth. The bodiless were apathetic. Their shapes darker than the surrounding night. They waited. What are you waiting for? Help me! But like her magic, the dead existed in abeyance.
Hecate found herself breathing hard and tried to calm herself. She looked out at the pier, it was closer now. She could be underneath it in a short time. She headed towards it, ignoring the cuts on her feet. Soon she looked up at cross beams and smelled rotting wood. Above, she heard others passing by. Their voices echoed off the girder, booming down. Hecate felt the pull again. It was like an itch.
“You shouldn’t be here.” A voice said in the dark. Hecate startled, she hadn’t noticed the man sitting at one of the giant beams to her right. He dipped his head in measured civility. His eyes never left her though. Even in the dark, she felt them on her.
“I’m allowed passage anywhere.” She said.
“Nah. I don’t think so. Not wearing that.”
Hecate looked down at the dress that clung to her wet skin. She saw breasts pulling the fabric tight, her pubic area doing the same. The man took a step forward. He tried to smile, rubbed at his lips. He had dark, glittery eyes and a hard, lined face. His wiry frame gave him the appearance of a cricket.
As he got close, Hecate backed further into the dark, toward the adjacent beam opposite to where he had been sitting. She walked back deliberately, turning to her left and then left again. The man followed slowly.
“You shouldn’t have come down here.” She heard him say. “It’s not safe.”
Hecate ducked behind another beam, crouched and took a few paces back towards where he had approached her. On her hands and knees, she crawled forward. Again her mind was pulled by that strange sensation to head further down the water’s edge.
A hand came down and gripped her by the hair. Hecate was thrown back into a beam. She felt warmth where her skull had cracked against the wooden support.
“Fucking bitch!” The man punched her hard in the stomach, then laid atop her, his hand on her mouth.
“You dirty fucking hooker. You meeting a john here?”
Hecate squirmed underneath him, felt hot breath on her face. His other hand on her breasts, he gyrated his hip into her, grinding against her until she felt him hard against her inner thigh.
“Don’t you make a fucking sound.” He whispered. But it was too late. Hecate smashed the rock she had been holding into his face. He screamed as blood spurted from his nose. Hecate felt it spray onto her face and tasted it on her lips. She brought the rock and thrashed him on the side of the head. He toppled back, against the pier beam and gurgled something incoherent. She brought the rock down again. Then again. Hecate leaped toward him, strode silently to stand within kissing distance then brought the rock down multiple times in quick succession. It was a savage array of blows. As she looked down at the mess at her feet, she felt the itch again. She closed her eyes tight until it passed.
Hecate bent close until she was at the man’s ear.
“Bodiless.” She said quietly. “I need answers.”
She sat him upright, his wet, glazed eyes stared up towards the bottom of the pier. Hecate frowned. She turned his head towards her.
“Can you hear me?”
She waited. The man didn’t stir. Hecate stared down at him, chewed at her lip.
“Bodiless!” She snapped. “You will liaise with me!”
Again she waited. They felt faint, just out of reach. The man coughed. Blood sprayed out in a mist. Hecate jerked his chin forward until she was looking into his eyes. “What has happened? Is this the Titans seeking retribution?”
The corpse in front of her gurgled softly. His mouth moving faintly. Hecate bent her ear to his mouth.
“Tell me departed, what is happening?”
The man’s mouth widened as if he was going to take a bite of an apple then a voice that hadn’t been his in life uttered. “You are in front of the veil.”
Hecate gasped and stood quickly. Of course. Why hadn’t she discerned it?
She looked south, felt the itch come back. Hecate went back to the water’s edge and washed her hands and feet. She ducked her head for good measure. The veil is asunder. She thought. Slowly, in ankle deep water, the goddess Hecate began to walk south.

Hecate and Sadie chapter excerpt

Sadie stepped into the nightclub and immediately felt closed in. After the wide spaces of the Lotus, a dinghy, hazy filled room with almost no light felt too much like the Basement. Her mind went back to that fateful night over a year ago and shuddered.
Nephthys took her hand and led her to a corner away from the blasting speakers.
“I’m going to get us some beers. Stay here.” She said.
“What are we doing here?” Sadie moaned.
“Until we can get a hold of Hank, we need to be someplace public.
With that, the Egyptian goddess looked towards the front door. Afternoon light seeped in from the sides and bottom making the entrance look otherworldy in the darkened club. She pulled a compact out of her backpack. Sadie leaned in involuntarily. Nephthys scowled at her face in the mirror.
“Do I look that bad?”
“Like somebody just kicked the shit out of you.” Sadie said with a weak smile.
“Look who’s talking.” Nephthys smiled then grimaced.
“Yeah, but I took his eye.” Kali said through Sadie’s mouth. Nephthys glanced at her friend. It was always a mystery with Sadie just how much control she really had. Sometimes it felt like talking to a marionette.
“Got anything else in that bag?” Sadie asked.
“Take it to the bathroom. There’s probably a half a gram left from the other night.”
Sadie licked her lips and snapped the compact shut. Nephthys watched her while scanning the room. “Try Hank again.” She said. “I don’t want to stay too long here. It will look weird.”
“I don’t think anybody could possibly be weirded out by us.”
She was right. The club was one of those goth inspired places that boomed with black lipstick and industrial rock music. Across the main floor, dancers strutted their wares in cages. Most were heavily tattooed and pierced. They shook their asses while men fumbled around slipping tips through the steel bars. Sadie thought of Freya and pushed the image of her friend out of her mind. She watched as Nephthys took a small staircase down to the bar floor and motioned for the barkeep. Still watching her friend, she auto-dialed Hank’s phone for the third time.
No response. At the sound of his voice message, she put a hand across the phone to shield it from outside noise. “Hey, it’s me. We left the Lotus.***** came.” She paused. “He messed me up pretty bad, baby. Call me.”
She put the phone away and watched a small group, maybe ten or fifteen people began converging near the center of the room. They were young, no older than herself, both men and women. All wore black, some robes that must have been breathtakingly hot. Her attention shifted shifted back to Nephthys who had just gotten two beers and was also staring at the crowd as she approached the corner booth.
“What is it?” She asked.
Sadie shook her head. She took a long pull off the beer and put it against her cheek. The coolness seeped into her bruised skin. She sighed and rubbed it on her forehead and eyes. In the center of the room, the small group had now grown to twenty or more. They made a ring, enclosed within one another. Some of the women were serpentine, slowly moving their hips around each other. As Sadie watched, an inner circle began to move opposite the main giving an eerie living effect, as if it were undulating or pulsating. To Sadie, they looked like a murmuration of birds, shifting from a circle to an hourglass shape and back. Both circles thickened like skin or maybe scales as the moving bodies coalesced into a single unit. Then from the outer circle, four stepped out. Each faced in a different direction. One for north, one for south, one for east and one for west. Then each pulled out what looked like a silver blade.

Hecate tried to visualize her friend as she stepped into the darkened room and squinted to see better. She had worn a white tank top and cutoffs and immediately felt stupid when she saw the ocean of black attire. It’s emo. She thought and debated leaving already. Stephanie would never come here. This isn’t her type of place. But was it? Her friend had been showing changes recently. She had refused to be subservient in their bedroom. The bed ties had been ignored. Hecate didn’t like it, she felt a pang of jealousy. At the very least she could say if there was a new boyfriend. Hecate strode to a booth and sat down hard. She willed the bodiless to her but knew immediately that something was wrong. Although she could see the greenish black hue of their silhouettes, they seemed reluctant. They were troubled. She willed them again and again they wanted to refuse. “What the hell?” Hecate pushed harder, letting her mind visualize the entire club. They would come to her. They would come when summoned and depart when banished. Then she heard a voice in her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, a hazy shade was near. No, my priestess. What? Hecate turned her head towards it.
“What is the matter?” She said irritably. Something is here. A Darkness. The bodiless said. A void. We won’t go near it.
“A void.” Hecate repeated.
Yes, my priestess. We cannot see through it.
 “I’ll avoid nothing.” Hecate said tersely.
As she said this, she noticed a mass of bodies in front of her. They began to move in rhythm. Not unlike the people at the roof top market, they came together in Eros as one. She knew it was her. Her presence was all that was needed for the residual grace of her title. As she watched, she felt her skin vibrate, the hairs on her arms stood on end. She was electric fire. She was the red wand, a lioness. She was blazing summer, mercurial, creation manifest. Her head began to get heavy, she wondered if her eyes were bleeding.
“Is it the coven?”
But the bodiless were gone. They had fled. Hecate darted her head left and right. Nothing. Her bodiless had left her. Then off in the corner, on the other side of the room, she saw a solid darkness.

Sadie took Nephthys’s hand into her own as she watched the swirling bodies change shape into what appeared to be arcane symbols or letters of a long dead language. She stood in awe as it morphed suddenly then changed direction.
“It’s like it’s alive.” Nephthys said softly.
“Yes.”
Sadie saw bursts of green shadow. They would ignite then disappear in random places. They were flecks of hue, tiny illuminations that revealed shapes. Somewhere inside, she felt Kali tense. Sadie felt odd, as if she had accidentally witnessed a crime being committed. Then something moved adjacent to the swarm of bodies. A woman had stood up from the booth nearly directly across the room and was staring right at her.

Hecate stared into the darkness and swore it was staring back at her. She felt it thick as fog and just as blinding. She squinted and began to make sense of what she was seeing. It was a woman, tall and ebony skinned. She had a lithe build and curly brown hair. She’d be beautiful if her face didn’t look to have been beaten. But there was something else. Standing next to the ebony was a veil of blackness. It was a caul of darkness. Hecate stood and stared as it began to reveal itself. A body! Somebody else was there and the darkness had disguised it. As she watched, the veil momentarily slipped and she saw her. Hecate gasped. It was the woman she had seen both in dreams and waking life. Aside from the blue skin and tongue, it was her.
“You!” She screamed.

Sadie felt Kali lunge forward and nearly tumbled. Nephthys had a hold of her arm and began to pull. Sadie felt herself in a reverie and shook her head. Kali, stop! She looked out at the crowd. The woman had screamed and was pointing at her. Sadie felt Nephthys pull her towards the back of the club. Her arm hurt where the Egyptian goddess was squeezing and she tried to pry her fingers off. She stumbled and fell, her knee cracking the wooden flooring.
“What is happening?”
“I don’t know!” Nephthys screamed. “But I think she knows you and I’d bet she’s Descended!”
Sadie veered hard into the wall and again the Descendant flashed before her eyes. She saw broken glass and bloody screams.
Nephthys grabbed her by the shoulder and steered her toward an exit sign at the back of the club. Sadie glanced back to see if the woman was following.
And she was.
“She’s chasing us!”
Sadie screamed as she burst through the dark club into the light of day.

Hecate stopped at the exit sign and watched the women flee like terrified kittens. It didn’t matter. She had seen her. She knew the mortal face and also knew something Descended lay underneath. She willed the bodiless around her. They came albeit reluctant.
“You will follow them.”
We will not. 
“You will.”
No, goddess we cannot. 
“Why?”
We will not. 
“Why are you terrified?”
But there was no answer. Hecate scoffed and walked back into the club.

Hank inhaled, smelled the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass. It was rich here, the cemetery a bouquet of purple and yellow flowers, their petals dipped in new paint. It didn’t seem real. As if the grounds were beautified all at once. New Los Angeles cemetery wasn’t the only one of its kind in the city but it was the most expansive. Located underneath the Bay Bridge, it’s ground covered miles and was meticulously maintained.
The girl had agreed to meet but insisted on it being here, amongst the spirits. Hank shuddered involuntarily and stepped further in. He was almost apprehensive, a fetid claustrophobia settled into him. He felt like he was being swallowed. 
Then, as the church bells began to toll, she stepped into the open. Hecate. A Descendant. She looked the same as when she barged into his office weeks earlier. Her dyed red hair was pulled back into a pony tail; Her tiny arms and small waist drowned in the black t-shirt she wore. Hecate’s face was borderline beautiful. She had put on burgundy lipstick that matched her hair and a shade of eye shadow that was the color of pinot noir. To Hank, her eyes were the most expressive. They were large, almost too large for her face and spaced a hair farther apart than was usual, giving her an exotic look.
She stepped up to him, took a sniff.
“Hello Detective.” She said.
“Hello Descendant.” He replied.
She blinked at him, her thick eye lashes gazed up curiously.
“You’re not afraid?” She asked him.
Hank lowered his head, stretched his neck. “I’ve met other Descendants.”
“Oh, yes. I heard that. May I ask which ones?”
“You may not.” He answered. I’ve seen much worse than you though honey. His mind flashed to Sadie Fuller in the blackness of a barn.
Hecate frowned, like a daughter that had just been told no for the first time.
“Are you gonna find Stephanie?”
“I’m going to try.”
Hecate motioned for him to follow and they moved past a row of oak trees that had probably stood for a hundred years. Hank heard a dog howling somewhere close and wild bird flapping above.
“I need to know what happened that night Hecate.”
“Have you talked to Deanna?” Hecate asked quickly.
“I have.”
“Did she tell you what I told her happened?”
“She said I should ask you.”
“Figures.”
Oh, there are issues there. Hank thought. “Is Deanna a problem?”
Hecate laughed. “Not to me. She’s a total fucking cunt to Steph though. But whatever. It’s not my business.“
She stopped. As if unsure to continue or perhaps second guessing what she wanted to say.
“Uh-huh.” Hank prompted. He cleared his throat. “Is it about Ray?”
Hecate looked quickly at him. “How do you know about Ray?”
“I’ve been interviewing people around the neighborhood.”
Hecate smiled devilishly. “Ray’s a con and piece of shit. He tried to fuck me so what does that tell you?”
Holy shit.
“That Deanna has shitty taste in men.”
“That’s for sure.”
They stopped at a gravestone. Hank saw that it was old, the chiseling faint, rubbed out. It would disappear entirely one day. It read: A. Winters.
“Did you know this person?” He asked.
But Hecate’s attention was elsewhere. Her dark eyes focused on something in the distance. As if a memory had surfaced that would have been better off staying submerged.
“Was it Ray?” She asked.
“What?”
“Do you think it was Ray?”
“I was going to ask you that question.”
Hecate turned away, her forehead scrunched up. “I don’t know.”
“Hecate, What exactly happened?”
The trees rustled overhead as Hecate shivered and put her hands in her pockets. Avoiding his eyes, she stared at the ground. Hank led her to the shade and there they sat. He heard a low hum and sat up straight. In the corner of his eye, he saw shadows moving about. Her residuals. He thought.
Hecate stared at him smiling.
She’s doing this. 
He looked her in the eye, both knowing that it was she causing the disturbances in his mind.
“Stop it, Descendant.” He ordered.
“I thought you knew more of us. Surely, you’ve been subject to our grace before?”
“It’s not grace.” He said in a dry voice. “Not anymore.”
“Maybe not. But you don’t look so well Detective.”
“Stop it!”
Hank jumped up and grabbed her arm, yanking her to her feet. “Tell me what happened or I drop this goddamn case right now.”
Hecate shook his hand off of her. “Fine! Don’t touch me again.”
Hank felt that some threshold had passed between them, that he had passed some test he didn’t know she was administering. It was like that with the fallen deities sometimes. You never really knew what they were thinking. It was like being around a tiger, the potentiality for ferocity was always there. He knew whatever he had said or done had been right.
Hecate moved to the cemetery fence and turned to face him. Her back to it, she leaned back. He heard it creak under her weight. The sound unsettled him.
I saw your deck.” She almost whispered. “At your office. The tarot deck. Do you know that I’m the priestess.” She looked up at him, her lips parted just slightly. “I’m she. I could tell you everything. The magic behind the veil.”
“Well, you could start by telling me where your fucking friend is.” He said. Hecate stopped short, looking away dejected.
“It was here.” She said. “We were here when she came.”
“At the cemetery?”
“Yes.”
Hank turned toward her, noticed for the first time the piercing in her bottom lip. How did I miss that?
“Do you like it?” She asked sweetly.
Hank stepped forward. “Stop fucking with me!”
“I think you do.” She said leaning forward.
Hank raised a finger to her face. “What happened?” He demanded.
“She showed up out of nowhere!”
“Who did!” Hank shouted.
Hecate shook her head violently, her tiny fists balled up, eyes blazed up at him. “I have no idea! Some woman. An old lady, grayish.”
“That describes everybody over forty. Got anything else?”
“She was blind.”
Silence.
Hank stared at Hecate, his eyes swept over her near perfect features. “She was old and blind?”
“Yes.” Hecate whispered. “Her eyes were whites, covered in cataracts.”
“And this old, gray, blind woman-somehow managed to overpower two young women and carry Stephanie off in her fucking-old-person-wheel-chair-chariot?”
“Fuck you. I don’t care if you believe me.”
This Descendant is drug addled. Hank thought. “Perhaps you’re confused.” He turned his attention toward the cemetery exit. “I thought you wanted to find your friend. Or perhaps you don’t, I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
Hank studied her, debating how far he could push her. He turned to walk away.
“Are you saying I had something to do with this?” She asked.
For the first time, Hank felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Her ferocity was evident, threatening to spill out violently. He took two steps back, his eyes not leaving her even for a second.
Hecate spoke slowly, the pitch of her voice low, raspy. “Don’t do that. I told you. It was an old woman. She was graying, wrinkled, stooped.”
“What was she wearing?”
“A nightgown I think. It was sheer, like, I could almost see through it in the moonlight.”
“How late was it?”
“Not too late. Ten maybe? Stephanie was picking flowers. And she was just suddenly there.”
Hank stared at the Descendant goddess and his doubt began to melt away. Hecate looked haggard. Her eyes were troubled as if the truth was hard for even her to believe. She recoiled when she caught him staring.
“Hecate, would you be willing to undergo hypnosis?”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes in a trauma of this kind, memory isn’t always accurate. Sometimes the mind changes certain details to make it easier to cope. I think this might be what is happening to you.”
“You want to hypnotize me?”
“Not me. I gotta gal that will do it.”
“To see if my mind is playing trick on me.”
“There’s a chance that how you remember it isn’t actually how it happened. Is that OK?”
“I guess.”
“I think it will help.”
Hecate smiled at him. An alluring smile that again made him feel unsettled. She whirled away in one swift move, like a dancer in a routine. She looked back as she exited the cemetery and crossed the street, hailing a cab with a short whistle.
Hank still hadn’t moved.


Hecate felt a sense of quickening as she entered the office of Dolan’s hypnotist. She had tiny limbs, pearl white teeth, saucers for glasses. She sat poised. Does she know I’m Descended?
Sevier smiled but it wasn’t contrived or silly. A natural smile. She cleared her throat, wrapped her scarf a little tighter. Hecate could tell it was handmade, probably by the Doctor herself.
“I’m Dr. Clarke Sevier.” She said simply. “Please sit.”
Hecate couldn’t remember feeling so tired. She absently wondered if the hypnosis had already begun. She sat heavily, her arms to her side. She looked out the window at a blue house. The cloud filled sky would soon succumb to the dark blot of nighttime.
She waited.
“Now then.” Sevier began. “Hank tells me you want to retrieve some memories.”
Hecate stared into space for a short time. “Yes.”
Sevier nodded. “I can help you with that. Have you ever been hypnotized?”
Hecate shook her head. Her brittle expression stared back at Sevier. “I’m not like most people. This probably won’t work.”
Sevier smiled, a sweeping motion with her whole being that made Hecate’s chest pound. The Doctor knows.  
“I’ve met others like you.” Sevier said.
“Is that OK? Is any of this safe…for you?” Hecate asked.
“It’s certainly fine. It seems to me that your kind, like mine, just don’t want to feel alone. That, my dear, is our commonality. We don’t want to feel alone. And that’s why I’m not afraid. Loneliness is the most universal, the most human characteristic you’ve inherited while Descending. I am sorry for that.”
Hecate had never heard anything like it. The mortal woman had imparted a great secret.
“I’ve interacted with Descended before. Believe me.” Sevier said softly.
Hecate studied the woman then turned her head to Hank. “We can begin.”
Sevier nodded, sat up straight in her chair and focused on Hecate. She gazed as if absorbed in Hecate’s features. Hecate wondered what the maiden form of this mortal had looked like. She would bet the Doctor had been ravishing in youth. Sevier lifted her hands in a gesture.
“I want you to take deep breaths.” Sevier said. She took a deep breath and motioned for Hecate to try. The goddess inhaled deeply through her nose then exhaled through parted lips.
“Good.” Sevier cooed. “Just keep breathing in regularly, deeply, and focus on my voice.”
Hecate felt her muscles dissolve into the couch. She felt like soft ice cream and wondered if she’d simply fall asleep.
“I want you to stare at the back wall behind me. Do you see a picture?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Hecate heard the ticks of a clock on the wall. She turned towards it, Sevier followed her gaze.
“The picture on the wall is of a tiger but I’d rather focus on that.”
“The clock?”
“The ticking.”
“Do it.”
Hecate felt wisps of her hair settle onto her forehead. Soon, the tiny ticks were thunderous in her ears. They boomed like large fireworks. Dolan remained silent. His eyes revealing nothing, he simply sat immobile.
“I want you to relax your head and shoulders.” Sevier said. “Relax them wholly, completely.”
Hecate obeyed. Her eyes half shut, she loosened her muscles, rolled her shoulders until they were pliable as dough.
“Now your chest.” Sevier said. “Good. And now your arms and hands.”
Hecate felt as if her body had been submerged into the warm blue. She was in Greece again. She was in Thessaly. She was in the womb. She stretched out until her face was exposed then closed her eyes and let the water come over her head. She drifted down. Down into the warm blue. She heard Sevier’s voice but it was far away. She was in the warm blue again. She was home again.
“You’re on a staircase Hecate” Sevier said. “I want you to imagine yourself at the top of a staircase.”
Hecate nodded.
“There are ten steps. We’re going to take each step one by one.”
“Into the warm blue.”
“Yes, Hecate. Into the blue. With each step you’ll become more and more relaxed.”
“Yes.”
“Take the first step, Hecate. I’m with you. You’re getting more relaxed. Can you feel it?”
“Yes.”
Hecate felt herself beginning to lose herself. It wasn’t sleep. It was as if she were drugged or in a trance. Her limbs were driftwood on a river.
“I’m being carried away.” She said.
“Good. Now a second…and the third.”
Hecate was swallowed by a whale. She heard Sevier from far away.
“The fourth.”
There was a blackness at the bottom of the staircase. It was the night having become the texture of polished onyx. It was shining. Hecate gasped. “The night is shining.”
“Take the fifth. Now the sixth.” Sevier said.
The dark was close, entrails of shadow seeped outward like fingers. They probed from the blackness.
“The seventh.”
Hecate was close.
“The eighth.”
She was almost at the radiating darkness. She could feel it vibrating, a low hum.
“The ninth.”
She was there. Hecate stepped just outside the mass.
“The tenth.”
Hecate stepped inside. This wasn’t the warm blue it was something else, something darker. Hecate drooped, felt as if she were plunging into the mass. Was she falling? She heard Sevier’s voice. “I’m going to ask you a few questions about the day Stephie went missing.”
Hecate tried to swallow, to orient herself. She squirmed in the blackness, heard a hissing come from somewhere in front of her.
“Hecate, what happened in the cemetery?”
“The alley.” Hecate corrected. Hank looked from Sevier to Hecate then back to the Doctor. He leaned close, took out his notebook and began to jot rapidly.
Hecate looked up the staircase, the light was fading. “There was somebody there. A man. We heard tapping on the street.”
“From his shoes.”
“Yes.”
Hecate heard hissing again. A whisper came from the dark in front of her. “Mara.”
“What did he look like Hecate?”
She shook her head. “He was our height. He had a rag. It smelled. He put it over Stephanie’s face.”
“Mmmmmaaaarrrraaaaaa.” The whisper in the dark got louder. Hecate winced and stuck out her arms protectively.
“We need to stop.” Hecate said.
“We’re almost there honey. Just a little longer.” It was Hank.
“Tell me what his face looks like.” Sevier coaxed.
Hecate squinted but couldn’t see him. “It’s in shadows. I can’t see it.”
“Is he taking Stephanie?”
“He has a rag over her mouth. She’s struggling at first then goes limp. He’s taking her! Oh no! He’s dragging her away!”
“I am she who is black.” The voice whispered in Hecate’s ear. I am the sheath.”
Hecate screamed.
“Where is he taking her Hecate?”
“He’s taking her away!”
Hecate spasmed in the dark. The blackness gleamed and reflected back onto itself. It was a fog, something dense. Patches of shadow wrapped around her legs and torso. Se heard it again.
“I am the sheath.”
Then Hecate saw a face materializing out of the dark. It had been no more than inches away the entire time. It was a woman. She had a bluish hue, large  black sockets. The face was beautiful in its terribleness. She opened her mouth to show fangs and then unfurled a long, dripping tongue. Hecate froze, momentarily paralyzed. But the night terror revealed more. Hecate saw a necklace of small skulls, felt a blade tip on her midsection.
She tried to call the bodiless, reached out with her mind but the dead weren’t listening or no longer cared. The soot oozed up her chest and shoulders, melted into her skin until she was as black as the darkness around her. The staircase! She turned to run but the thing in front of her grabbed her by the left forearm and yanked her back.
Hecate yelped as cold water was thrown into her face. She blinked a number of times.
“Hecate, wake up!” Hank screamed.
She was on the floor. Sevier was standing in the corner of the room in a defensive posture. Her eyes stared in fright.
“What happened?” Hecate asked.
“You began screaming and writhing on the couch.” Hank said. “You had a goddamn fit.”
Hecate began to remember things as is through an aperture. Things were getting smaller, less defined. The gap was closing.
“Did you get what you needed?” She asked.
Hank shrugged. “We got some insights into the truth.”
“You were wonderful, dear.” Sevier chimed in quietly. “I should have woken you earlier. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s OK. I don’t remember much.”
“It’s probably best.” Hank said.
But it was true. Hecate remembered walking down the staircase or at least the first few steps. Then a face. A face in the dark. She wondered if the bodiless had caused her to fit. Somewhere she thought she heard a shrill scream. Was that my own? She tilted her head back. Why was I screaming?